Part One: The sights

Over the next few days (or weeks, since life has a way of getting away from me) I'm planning to do a series of posts as a sight seeing tour.  For those of you on Facebook, you most likely have seen some of this.  The purpose is partly to document all our travels for the sake of remembering the details in years to come.  I'll be splitting the posts up into "sights" and "people."  This first post covers some sights from our arrival in August through mid October.  

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Shopping malls are still thriving and growing here.  They are extremely shiny, clean, and modern looking.  Most have a food court on the top floor that is likely to have Burger King, KFC, Sbarro, Papa John's, Carl's Jr, and even some dessert places like Baskin Robbins or Cinnabon! They also usually have cool kids play areas. If you are brave and trusting, you can drop your kids off to play, leave a phone number, and go shopping alone! 
 I'm pretty sure I've been to the mall more often since we are here than the rest of my life combined. 


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Ethan, Mikayla, and I visited the National Art Museum.  

Two of my favorite paintings:

Interior of the museum 


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The location of our apartment has turned out to be perfect in so many ways.  This beautiful park is a 5-10 minute walk away and offers a refreshing break from the busyness off the city.



Sunset from our window

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As is the case in much of Europe, there are a lot of beautiful cathedrals in Belarus.  This one is in the center of Minsk, and many cultural festivals take place in the park around it.





The National Library of Belarus: a fairly new, and a bit controversial building.  We belong to the group who thinks it's pretty cool looking.  There are others who think it is an eyesore.  The top of the rhombicuboctahedron is an observation deck and cafe.  Inside the library is a science museum, art exhibits, drop off babysitting, and of course lots of books.




View from the observation deck toward our apartment.  We can see the library from in front of our building when we look between those ""twin towers."


The same view at night.  The blue building is the Dana Mall which has a store called the Green Hypermarket, which is where I do the majority of our grocery shopping.  We don't have a car, so I have to be able to carry everything I buy back on the metro to our apartment.  



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Belarussian National Circus
We attended a circus performance on a Sunday afternoon.  It lasted 5 HOURS.  It was worth it, though!




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 We made a weekend trip to Vitebsk and Polosk, in the northeastern part of the country.  We rode a train for the first time and stayed at a really cool hotel.  I posted about it earlier, so I won't go into a lot of detail now.  Here's a few pictures though :)

















  
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Back in Minsk:
It's interesting to see some of the same revitalization trends happening both here and in the US.  Oktyabrskaya Street is lined with old warehouses that are being renovated and repurposed.  For the past three years, there has been a Brasil Street Art Festival with graffiti competitions, music, and dancing.

Optical illusion:
The blue and yellow building is flat.

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During the height of the autumn colors, we had the chance to visit a historic village museum just outside of the city.  We saw traditional houses, barns, and churches, complimented beautifully with the bright leaves.










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